Good afternoon.
have you submitted your documents and exhibits five days in advance of this hearing yes okay
and you have uh several use refusals and zoning refusals
And you have several use refusals and zoning refusals, so do you waive the reading of the refusals and stipulate to the accuracy?
Yes, except we've made revisions to the project, and so some of the refusals have been removed, and we have submitted the proviso plan form and updated plans that will reflect that.
Hillary's nodding.
All right.
You can proceed with your case.
Thank you.
okay can you see my screen yeah okay great
maybe just a little larger if that's possible
is that better that's better yep okay so um this is a project on a thousand north 48th street and
And as mentioned, we have the support of Mill Creek Advisory Council, the coordinating RCO.
I'll go through this, but we met with them in two different occasions and received a letter of support based on the revisions, which our architect will go through.
The original proposal was for the erection of an attached structure with a roof def and roof def access with residential use, multifamily household living.
It was reduced from 16 to 15 units.
And like I said, some of these have been reduced.
so we'll go through that on the plans a lot of the refusals were generated because the property is
owned rsa5 let's go through some of the visuals to give you a sense of the site the deed
so this is a pretty unique but significantly sized parcel it originally contains an entire city block
on the North 48th Street. Directly behind the property is a massive cemetery. And we're just
talking about this parcel here, which was formerly subdivided from a larger site. The property wasn't
always a standalone site. It was created through this lot line adjustment that was reviewed from
the city, which resulted in two different parcels. And just now this smaller piece is the only one
that remains undeveloped all these other projects and I'll show you the larger survey have been
adoptively reused to multi-family and I think there's one that is a vacant shelter at this
point looking to either have someone else in there or probably will have the same residential
character and we're just dealing with this 4585 square feet vacant parcel on the end
As you can see from the zoning mats, this entire property on the block is zoned RCA5.
There's a park across the street and a massive cemetery to the rear.
Just a little bit more site context, it's sort of like this island here.
These are all former rectories, beautiful churches that have been adaptively reused.
There's a massive parking lot to the rear of these sites, and then this small square
or parcel is all that remains undeveloped on this site. A little bit closer up.
Same thing. Just some of the street views of the property. It sits a little bit lower on grade than
the remaining properties. So the height variance that we're requesting actually just makes it so
it meets the directly adjacent structure. Some of the additional height is, again, just the grade
change it also the grade trains directly adjacent and to the rear of the property as well it also
directly abuts that rear parking lot so some of the design that we put forward takes into
consideration that there is the rest of this site is completely developed in addition to the surface
parking lot just a view this way it's obviously this corner lot here this is a view of the vacant
lot and the church as mentioned these parcels have been adaptably reused to multi-family so
what we're providing is in character which with what is already on this block as one single family
home or multiple single family homes don't really make sense for this direct block given the
adjacency to the park, the parking lot, and these adaptively reused multifamily buildings.
A little bit further away, just so you can see the site context.
And this is all the same owner.
Again, further down, another church.
This is all the way down at the other end.
this is all the way down at the other end
Just so you can kind of see, again, the cemetery to the rear, so there's really no
directly affected near neighbors on at least this block.
And of course, across the street is the Claire Muhammad Square as well.
As you can see, this is sort of the only properties on this block.
as mentioned this is just the site context and the survey just showing um the unit counts in
the adjacent buildings um 15 units 34 units think it's a total of about 80 units um spread out
through these some have been uh redeveloped some have permits that are going to be redeveloped
somewhere in the middle of construction but multi-family buildings uh directly adjacent
These are just the zoning posters on the property scene, sort of, the site.
And just to touch on the refusals a little bit,
first, a use refusal is being asked for given that we're asking for multifamily 15 dwelling units.
It's prohibited because the site is on RSA 5.
Second, a dimensional variance for height.
The maximum allowed is 38 feet in RSA 5, where the revised building proposed 51 feet,
four inches to the main parapet, with the stair and elevator towers reaching 58 and
64 feet, respectively.
A dimensional variance for occupied area is a corner lot.
The property is permitted 80%.
We're asking for just an additional 16.3%.
There's really no need to provide a nine-foot rear yard for a multifamily building, especially
that backs up to a parking lot and then for the dimensional variance again for rear yard which
requires a nine foot rear yard again we're not providing a single family home on the almost
five thousand square foot lot and so those were the dimensional variances again just as you can
see from the site contacts the property is quite unique it is the corner property and it is the
small leftover remainder of a much larger institutional campus so some of this is just
to align with what's already there. And the site as a whole is a little over 92,000 square feet,
so pretty massive in scale. We met with the directly adjacent near neighbors two times
through the RCO meeting and provided notice and had a letter of support from the Mill Creek
Advisory Council. We met with them twice. Originally, we had proposed commercial spaces
on the ground floor given it was a corner and proposed a lot more height which we have reduced
take an entire floor off and removed a unit and through those revisions and some aesthetic
conversations with the rco we have you know their support for this project
if i could bring on robert uh wong to just go through the plans um i'd be happy to answer any
Robert. Robert has been promoted to speak. Thank you.
okay uh thank you this is uh this is robert wong pcs architects robert could you please spell your
name for the stenographer yes uh r-o-b-e-r-t w-o-n-g you swear or affirm to tell the truth
the whole truth nothing but the truth yes sir counsel uh robert could you just go through
the plans on my screen and uh revisions yes as rachel had mentioned uh the proposed building
is essentially taking up uh i think it's like um 96 uh percent of the of the total lot um it is about
uh 43 point uh 43 feet six inches wide and approximately 100 feet long um so in response
In response to concerns by the neighborhood, the building was the building height was reduced by taking one of the floors off, as well as the initial design concept had two commercial spaces.
off as well as the initial design concept had two commercial spaces on the first floor
which based off of the community's response those that element was removed so it's no longer a
mixed-use building it is now 100 residential so we were able to put residential units down on the
first floor um the upper floors contain on floors two three and floor have uh four apartments each
three apartments on the first floor coming to a total of 15 apartments um the existing four
story stone building that is uh page right um of the of the building uh indicates that it is
approximately um 64 feet tall um so the grade going from the street line to the to the face
of that existing building uh raises considerably somewhere between seven to eight feet um and then
the rear wall that rachel was referring to that abuts against the parking lot is probably close
to eight to ten feet in vertical height change from the adjacent grade so once the main building
height was reduced to approximately 51 feet the building is now essentially at the same height
as the adjacent four story and the rest of the campus buildings we are slightly taller than the
the existing buildings that are on the page left, and those are multi-story, three, I believe three-story existing buildings that are about 36 to 38 feet in height.
There's one that's 24 feet in height, and we are so we are requesting the the dimensional changes, as Rachel had mentioned, we are occupying more than 80% of the corner lot.
um and we are over the uh the variance request for the height which is 51 feet to the main
building parapet line the other items that go up to respectively 64 feet is the top of
the elevator override and then 58 feet to the top of the egress stair towers that are required
just the renderings yes so the the design intent is to um stay in line with some of the existing
materials there's obviously a lot of stone as rachel had shown in the existing photography
of the of the main building so we'd like to make a play off of that uh the rest of the neighborhood
is also has obviously a lot of row homes and quite a bit of masonry so you know there will be
quite a bit of either stone or masonry on the main facades of the building we're going to try
to open up the windows into the spaces as much as possible but yeah essentially the the main
entry sequence will be off of the corner as as shown here um and uh this exhibit which was shown
during the rco meeting we wanted uh to show the community that even though the building even
though we were requesting a height variance um that we believed they would be minimal impact
throughout the course of the day so starting at lower right hand corner 1a and going up to 4b
views 1a and 1b show the shadow profile of the of the project at i believe eight o'clock in the
morning so you can see that it's really we're just putting shadow on the owner's existing
uh parking lot um and then and then uh 2a and 2b um are later in the day um and the shadow is cast
page right onto their own property um 3a and 3b i believe are at four o'clock in the afternoon and
the shadow is being cast onto the open park um and then it's really only as the as the sun transitions
from 4 p.m until the evening to like essentially 7 p.m that the the project would cast any sort of
shadow onto the onto one of the uh to caddy corner of the adjacent properties
thank you
council uh nothing further on our end um are you going to bring one to your oh yes my apologies
yeah um itai argman um should be in the audience representing the owner
mr ita is allowed
Mr. Ita is allowed to speak.
Thank you.
Rachel, before the architect goes, do we ever talk about the units themselves, what
they look like?
It's a good point, Chairman.
Do you have the floor plan, Robert?
i do not but in response to that they are one bedroom one bath apartments i believe
in the neighborhood of 600 plus square feet per apartment separate living room
so with a with a full kitchen in each space
all right bring bring on the owner please sure
yes can you hear me yes could you please state your name and spell it for the stenographer
yes my name is etai e-t-a-i and my last name is argument a-r-g-a-m-a-n
you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
Council can you turn your camera on sorry to figure that out
try to figure this out okay council have you heard my testimony today do you believe it to
be true and accurate and do you adopt it as your own yes thank you all right questions from the
board yeah i've got a couple uh well the first comment that i have is i don't see this as really
fitting in character with the rest of the campus. Those are very unique Wissahick and Schist,
essentially historic buildings with mansard roofs. Even the building across the street that's a
three-story has a mansard roof. You've sort of created a big box on the corner with a solid,
But most of the frontage that fronts the park is a stone wall with no windows.
It's offensive in respect to the, it doesn't respect the rest of the campus, in my opinion.
We don't have plans of the floor plans, so we don't kind of see how they kind of work out with the exterior.
I'm concerned that there's no real setback from the 48th Street.
The building goes from property line to property line, even though there's a breezeway, I guess, between the or is that a breezeway or is that a property line between that building and the the old schoolhouse?
Are you are directly on the property line where the steps go up?
It's it's directly on the property line. So those are that's an existing series of steps and walkway.
OK, so we've got so there are no windows along that along along that facade.
Since it's a zero lot line condition, there would be no windows there.
So since we're building on directly against two lot lines at the project rear and on the project right-hand side, there are no windows along those two facades because of fire rating issues and concerns.
so we've created a condition where a project that could be very nice and have light around
all natural light around the entire building you created a condition where there's no light
on two sides and a blank wall that's on the main on one of the main facades i think it
disrespects the architecture of the uh the existing campus so there's correct me if i'm
wrong robert there's windows on the front edge and the side correct there there are windows on the
on the on the street facades and um you know with a tight site like this at least one portion
of a building would need to have uh you know a connecting corridor to for circulation so
you know that it made a lot of sense to be able to put the circulation side on the portion of the
property where we had a zero lot line condition and would be prohibitively expensive for for the
project to install glazing into into a fire rated wall similarly towards the rear backing off the
um backing off of the property line would uh would make the layouts of the apartments uh somewhat
backing off of the property line would
difficult and you know at the end of the day we you know as rachel was saying like the the nine foot
uh setback um then creates actually would create almost like a an alley between the rear of the
building and the raised um portion of the existing retaining wall back there so in some ways i would
think that doing that would create um a condition that becomes unsafe for both the tenants of the
building and the um the uh the neighborhood in general so we thought this was you know a
uh a a way to um build a multi-family building and uh effectively glaze the facades that we did
have available um and you know the the designs are continuing to evolve so we understand your
concern about the front facade yeah i was going to mention i do appreciate the comment around the
aesthetic although it's sort of out of place for zoning but we've done in other projects where the
board has mentioned um you know wanting to have the aesthetic and design match the existing
character a little better we've gone back and made some revisions so that the board can see that i
think especially in consideration that we don't have floor plans i also understand that concern so
um i don't know if the board would uh want to uh hold this so that we can provide an update
so so why don't we do this why don't we go through see if there's anything else okay that
board members may have and then we'll get together and we'll have a plan where we're going to go
yeah i just don't want to disrespect the questions from the board yeah with a reduction in the
building height how high are the roof deck access structures from the ground level
from the ground level the top of the elevator tower is at 64 feet the top of the stair towers
are at 58 feet and the main parapet is 51 feet 4 inches from grade okay and the intent is still
to have this be occupiable roof for all tenants I believe so at this moment in time we're
preserving the option to be able to occupy the roof yes okay and then with the reduction of the
of the height and the removal of the commercial spaces what's happening at the ground floor of